Monday April 1, 2013
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report
February 2013 (OEI-02-09-00201) stating they found, "For 37 percent
of stays, SNFs did not develop care plans that met requirements or
did not provide services in accordance with care plans. For 31
percent of stays, SNFs did not meet discharge planning
requirements. Medicare paid approximately $5.1 billion for stays in
which SNFs did not meet these quality-of-care requirements.
Additionally, reviewers found examples of poor quality care related
to wound care, medication management, and therapy. These findings
raise concerns about what Medicare is paying for. They also
demonstrate that SNF oversight needs to be strengthened to ensure
that SNFs perform appropriate care planning and discharge
planning."
The OIG made the following recommendations; "We recommend that
the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS): (1) strengthen the
regulations on care planning and discharge planning, (2)
provide guidance to
SNFs to improve care planning and discharge planning,
(3) increase surveyor
efforts to identify SNFs that do not meet care planning and
discharge planning requirements and to hold these SNFs
accountable, (4) link payments to meeting
quality-of-care requirements, and (5) follow up on the SNFs
that failed to meet care planning and discharge planning
requirements or that provided poor quality care. CMS concurred with
all five of our recommendations."
You may read the entire OIG Report by clicking on the link
below.
